EARLY IN HIS presidency, Jimmy Carter set about to alter US policy toward the Soviet Union. Six days after his inauguration he sent a letter to Soviet ruler Leonid Brezhnev, hailing the two countries' "common efforts towards formation of a more peaceful, just, and humane world" and saluting Brezhnev's supposed "aspiration for strengthening and preserving. . . peace." In a commencement address at Notre Dame, he declared that Americans had shed their "inordinate fear of communism." In the months that followed, Carter slashed the defense budget, scrapped the B-1 bomber, welcomed the Sandinista coup in Nicaragua, and launched diplomatic relations with Cuba's dictator, Fidel Castro.

It wasn't until the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 that Carter finally woke up to his naiveté. Moscow's brutal aggression "made a more dramatic change in my opinion of what the Soviets' ultimate goals are," he admitted, "than anything they've done in the previous time that I've been in office."

Carter's failure to understand the threat posed by the Soviet Empire had costly consequences for America and the world. Will that pattern now be repeated with Barack Obama and the threat from radical Islam?

Ever since taking office two weeks ago, Obama has been at pains to proclaim a change in US-Muslim relations. In his inaugural address he invited "the Muslim world" to embark on "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect." Six days later he gave Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language satellite channel, his first televised interview as president. This week he continued his charm offensive with a friendly letter to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. He has promised to deliver a major address in an Islamic capital by spring.

The president cannot be faulted for using his bully pulpit to reach out to the world's Muslims, especially given his Muslim roots and family ties. But running through his words is a disconcerting theme: that US-Muslim tensions are a recent phenomenon brought on largely by American provincialism, heavy-handedness, and disrespect. Missing is any sense that the United States has long been the target of jihadist fanatics who enjoy widespread support in the Muslim world.

"My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy," Obama said, although "we sometimes make mistakes" and "have not been perfect," and even though "too often the United States starts by dictating" and fails to use "the language of respect."

Such apologetic pandering is inexcusable. For decades, as commentator Charles Krauthammer noted last week, "America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them." To liberate oppressed Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Americans risked - and in some cases lost - their lives. Respect? Not even the Islamist atrocities of 9/11 provoked American leaders to treat Islam with disdain. "We respect your faith," George W. Bush earnestly told the world's Muslims on Sept. 20, 2001. "Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah."

Even more troubling is Obama's cluelessness about US-Muslim history.

"The same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago - there's no reason why we can't restore that," he said on Al-Arabiya.

Well, let's see. Twenty years ago, American hostages were being tortured by their Hezbollah captors in Beirut and hundreds of grief-stricken families were in mourning for their loved ones, murdered by Libyan terrorists as they flew home for Christmas on Pan Am Flight 103. Thirty years ago, the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran, proclaimed America "the Great Satan," and inspired his acolytes to storm the US embassy and hold scores of Americans hostage. Meanwhile, Islamist mobs were destroying US embassies in Pakistan and Libya, and staging anti-American riots in other countries.

Radical Islam's hatred of the United States is not a recent phenomenon, it has nothing to do with "respect," and it isn't going to be extinguished by sweet words - not even those of so sweet a speaker as our new president. Sooner or later, Obama must confront an implacable reality: The global jihad, like the Cold War, will end only when our enemies lose their will to fight - or when we do. Let us hope he's a quicker study than Jimmy Carter.

Crock of shit post. We in the West have taken shameless advantage of the people of the MidEast for a century or more. Dividing their territories up and creating nations with nonsensical borders simply to feed our thirst for their oil. Look up the history of the region. They have no reason to love us, and much reason to completely distrust us. So their radicals hate us. Hardly surprising. Their good people do not trust us, and have no reason to. We cannot change the radical, but, over the years, by reasonable actions, we can earn the trust of the good people. You don't do that by invading nations on the basis of lies, however. And torturing people is really a no-no.

Crock of shit post. We in the West have taken shameless advantage of the people of the MidEast for a century or more. Dividing their territories up and creating nations with nonsensical borders simply to feed our thirst for their oil. Look up the history of the region. They have no reason to love us, and much reason to completely distrust us. So their radicals hate us. Hardly surprising. Their good people do not trust us, and have no reason to. We cannot change the radical, but, over the years, by reasonable actions, we can earn the trust of the good people. You don't do that by invading nations on the basis of lies, however. And torturing people is really a no-no.

Crock of shit post. We in the West have taken shameless advantage of the people of the MidEast for a century or more. Dividing their territories up and creating nations with nonsensical borders simply to feed our thirst for their oil. Look up the history of the region. They have no reason to love us, and much reason to completely distrust us. So their radicals hate us. Hardly surprising. Their good people do not trust us, and have no reason to. We cannot change the radical, but, over the years, by reasonable actions, we can earn the trust of the good people. You don't do that by invading nations on the basis of lies, however. And torturing people is really a no-no.

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Another member of the blame America first club. Yes, the Europeans did a lousy job of setting up the ME after WWI, but what was the alternative? Leave the Ottoman Empire intact? Withdraw and allow all the many ethnic and religious groups to fight it out endlessly? As badly as the Europeans did, it was better than what would have happened if they had not acted. And the Arabs are damned lucky the west wanted their oil, because if the states the Arabs couldn't have formed for themselves had not had their oil "exploited" by the west, there wouldn't be any ME oil industry and what wealth there is among the Arabs wouldn't exist.

Crock of shit post. We in the West have taken shameless advantage of the people of the MidEast for a century or more. Dividing their territories up and creating nations with nonsensical borders simply to feed our thirst for their oil. Look up the history of the region. They have no reason to love us, and much reason to completely distrust us. So their radicals hate us. Hardly surprising. Their good people do not trust us, and have no reason to. We cannot change the radical, but, over the years, by reasonable actions, we can earn the trust of the good people. You don't do that by invading nations on the basis of lies, however. And torturing people is really a no-no.

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Good thing you warned us that what you were about to write was a crock of shit post

If anything, the western world and the need for oil has not taken advantage of the middle east, but propped it up to where it normally would not have been... We are not carving up nonsensical borders.. Beyond the creation of Israel as a sovereign nation from BRITISH and FRENCH territories, we have not carved up anything of Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Jordan, etc... you are just flat out WRONG

You do not try and change the radical maniacs who choose to murder in the name of their beliefs, you try everything you can to beat back and eliminate that enemy... And I actually suggest that you talk to people who have served over there and have worked over there, you will get an ENTIRELY different impression of how the every day person in the middle east feels about Americans and the US as a country...

And please quit with your baseless and debunked crapola of 'lies for war'... it is tiresome and already proven to be a 'crock of shit'

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